A.L. Waddington’s Disheartened, the second book in the Spirit Quest Series, follows Sidney as she lives two parallel lives 160 years apart. In 2020 Boston, she and Landon face medical school, hospital work, the COVID-19 pandemic, political unrest, and a painful family loss. In 1860, she is married to physician Keifer, gives birth to their son, visits his family in Savannah, and travels to Chicago as the nation moves toward civil war. Through the inherited gift of E.V.E., Sidney remembers both worlds and struggles with the desire to protect people whose futures she already knows.

I liked the alternating chronology because the two periods reflect each other without feeling identical. Both are marked by fear, social division, and families trying to preserve ordinary life while larger events close in. The domestic scenes give the novel much of its texture: shared meals, hospital shifts, childbirth, letters, road trips, and quiet conversations between couples. Sidney’s grief over Nicholas is especially effective because he connects her two lives, and his death leaves her emotionally unmoored.

The novel is also strongly political. Its characters debate COVID restrictions, race, elections, slavery, taxation, secession, and Lincoln’s role in the coming war. These views are presented from a distinctly conservative perspective, and readers will need to be comfortable with that approach. At times, the political dialogue slows the story and makes several characters sound alike. The book is strongest when those beliefs produce personal consequences, especially in Keifer’s divided loyalties and Sidney’s confrontation with the father who abandoned her.

I’d recommend Disheartened to readers of historical fiction, time-slip fantasy, family saga, political fiction, and romance. Its divided-life premise recalls Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, though Waddington focuses more on parallel families and foreknowledge. Disheartened is ultimately about having two homes and knowing neither can ever be safely left behind.

Pages: 442 | ASIN : B0GR9PWSL2